GENEVA (ILO News) – Addressing government, worker and employer delegates at the annual Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO), His Royal Highness Felipe de Borbón, Prince of Asturias today highlighted the need to “humanize” economic change and ensure that globalization offers “real advantages for all”.
Prince Felipe said the ILO’s 96th International Labour Conference was meeting “at a crucial time when it becomes obvious that there is a need for a social dimension, or we could say to humanize the major transformations in the economic order we have observed for several years now”.
His Royal Highness also told the tripartite delegates that he was convinced that “decent work is the best way to tackle underdevelopment, exclusion and marginalization”.
Referring to the commemoration of World Day Against Child Labour on Tuesday, he said poverty was the key to tackling the problem of child labour and called for efforts to seize the opportunities offered by globalization “to transform the social environment which sends children to work”.
“Child labour, which the ILO is helping to reduce considerably, constitutes a social scourge, a crying injustice, and a burden for the future of mankind reducing considerably the capacity of societies to progress”, Prince Felipe said.
“At the end of childhood, young people have difficulties finding a job”, he said. He reminded delegates that more than half of the population in the developing world is younger than 25 years of age and that “by repeating that young people are the future of mankind we may easily forget that they are also part of the present of mankind”.
Noting that 60 per cent of the global workforce are women, he said that it was right “to foster their economic independence and quality of life through decent work without discrimination”.
In his welcoming address, the Director-General of the ILO, Juan Somavia, reminded delegates of previous visits of members of the Spanish royal family to the ILO over the years, which “have always shown our common values and objectives”. Mr. Somavia presented Prince Felipe to the delegates as “a man concerned about social issues, not only in Spain but all over the world”.
“Consensus, social dialogue and decent work are the outstanding characteristics of this Organization which promotes social justice worldwide”, Prince Felipe said. “This conviction leads Spain to support the programme of the ILO that aims at reinforcing the tripartite structure and the capacities of trade unions, employers’ organizations and governments”.
“Only our sustained efforts can eliminate the remaining forms of child labour and forced labour, and that will be beneficial to mankind”, he said, adding that “if all of us are committed to decent work, it would be our best contribution to the eradication of poverty and the defence of human dignity”.
“You will not lack the support of Spain, the country I represent here today, for this endeavour”, Prince Felipe told delegates. “I encourage you to strengthen the cooperation we have had since the foundation of the ILO to foster economic and social progress for all peoples.”